about Vanity, Fame and Notoriety

The LLBF came by with a rueful smile on his face – he is getting a nose job! According to him it is a necessary evil and is not driven by vanity, his advancing years (he is wildly and mildly middle-aged) exacerbating a chronic condition.
And the Slo-Man listened to the LLBF expound on the risk factors as explained to him by his doctor and it made him wonder – what manner of people are vain enough to take those risks? What benefits other than those of lust, attention and money drive these people to willingly go under the knife?
And then it hit the Slo-Man; the benefits are lust, attention and potential for financial reward from a society besotted with “goodlooks”. Notwithstanding the efforts of certain cosmetic manufacturers to tell us how “we are all beautiful” it is a fact that North American society is deeply concerned with outward looks.
The celebrity status given to talentless people such as Paris Hilton and the Kardashians is puzzling and, to the Slo-Man, insulting to his intelligence. The Slo-Man was recently irritated by the Rebecca Black episode, not only because he actually was deceived into spending his valuable time viewing that video, but also because notoriety and fame have become mixed in our heads.
These used to b e two different states, notoriety used to be kept aside for the master thieves, serial murderers and other enemies of the public and fame was reserved for the heroic and givers to society.
How did we allow ourselves to be thus defrauded?
And spare a thought for the poor LLBF who is an unwilling participant!

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I agree entirely, though I’m so out of touch that I don’t even know who Rebecca Black is and what that episode was about. First, what is an LLBF? Second, yes, sadly, looks are extremely important in the States, and not just for young women. Like it or not, we get caught up in the lurid celebrity gossip–who’s had plastic surgery, who’s on what kind of diet, who has been seen out in public wearing (or not wearing) something. And I pledge to main a distinction between fame and notoriety.

LifeLongBestFriend….. Rebecca Black is a teenager whose mom paid thousands of dollars to a company to video her daughter singing some stupid song. The video went viral because of the silliness of the song. There are any number of parodies now.
She was invited to appear on Jay Leno’s Tonight show. It was one of the three catalysts for this post.http://sloword.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/about-the-state-of-affairs/
The other 2 triggers were the live coverage (on the same night) of the Libyan crisis and the Japanese tsnuami and the Fukushima nuclear tragedy….